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(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) Demonstrators gather at the White House on August 14, 2017, after the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a few days earlier. T his Sunday, as racist, self-described “defenders of Western values” assemble across the street from the White House, the president who brought those hate-mongers to prominence will be golfing in New Jersey. Unable to secure a permit for a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on the first anniversary of the melee instigated there last year by groups from the far right, organizer Jason Kessler decided to bring his sorry band of white supremacists to Washington, D.C. Like the Proud Boys fight club with which he allies himself, Kessler is a Trump booster, no doubt one of “the very fine people on both sides.” You’ll recall that those words of the president’s, uttered in response to the violence that took place in the streets of Charlottesville last year, were spoken from a meeting room at the president’s New...

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke) President Donald Trump at a campaign rally on August 2, 2018, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. I n a 2017 Freedom House report titled “ Breaking Down Democracy: Goals, Strategies and Methods of Modern Authoritarians ,” author Arch Puddington notes, “The rewriting of history for political purposes is common among modern authoritarians.” Though the line was used to describe the actions of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin, it fittingly applies, as well, to Donald J. Trump, president of the United States. At a rally last night in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the president characteristically whipped his supporters into a frenzy of repeated Two Minutes Hate rantings against the news media . What made it different this time, though, are the events that preceded it. First Daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump, earlier in the day, told Mike Allen of Axios that she does not view the press as “the enemy of the people,” an assertion her father has made...

AP Photo/Alex Brandon President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House after stepping off Marine One I n March of 1973, White House Counsel John Dean famously told Richard Nixon, “There’s a cancer on the presidency.” Dean referred, of course, to criminal actions taken on the president’s behalf, and the president’s involvement of a cover-up. Today, there’s clearly a disease on the presidency—and on the entire Cabinet, and on the majority in Congress, as well. But more than that, the plague is overtaking the body politic. There’s a pox on all of our houses. I recall when the Republican brand was a patriarchal vision dressed up in patriotism. Ironically (or not), it was that “love it or leave it” variety of American nationalism that led us to the abandonment of loyalty to the notion of American democracy—of an America led by Americans. The people who voted for and support Donald Trump don’t care that Vladimir Putin, president of the Russian Federation and no fan of...

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly, right, watches as Trump departs the East Room of the White House P resident Donald J. Trump loves Vladimir Putin, the Russian strongman—as do the right-wingers who love Trump. Some on the far right see Putin as the restorer of Christendom ; others simply see him as a champion of the white race . Donald Trump apparently sees Putin as the savior of, well, Donald Trump. But motives hardly matter in this new time; for white nationalists like former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Trump’s weakness for Putin serves Bannon’s dark vision for a reordering of the world , one that has little respect for democracy or civil rights. In the days preceding Trump’s visit to London, Bannon got himself a nice hotel suite in which he courted European far-right leaders , such as Brexiteer Nigel Farage and the National Front’s Louis Aliot—during which he stoked the chaos gripping the government of the United Kingdom over...

(AP Photo/Matt Dunham) Protesters fly a cartoon baby blimp of President Trump in Parliament Square in London on July 13, 2018. D onald Trump knows how to land himself on the front pages. Possibly distressed that his visit to London was playing second fiddle in the British news cycle to England’s World Cup loss to Croatia, Trump used an interview with The Sun to make threats against U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May that could further destabilize her government and push her from power. If May sealed the “soft Brexit” deal she’s negotiated with the European Union for the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, Trump said, a trade deal between the U.K. and the U.S. was probably off. Oh, and by the way, he thinks that Boris Johnson, a leading Brexiteer and political nemesis to May, would make a great prime minister. Last week, Johnson quit May’s government, where he had served as foreign secretary, in protest of May’s EU exit deal. For good measure, he threw in chilling comments that showed his...